Issuing bonds,shares or staying private? Determinants of going public in an emerging economy

The Warsaw Stock Exchange is one of Europe’s largest exchanges by the number of initial public offerings. In this study, we use a large data-set to explore firms’ decisions to issue equity on the main or alternative market, and debt on the bond market. We observe that, in general, larger, more profitable firms are more likely to go public, although in contrast to developed economies these firms tend to be younger. Moreover, we find that current market valuation positively affects the decision to go public on the main market, and we establish that highly leveraged companies are more likely to issue either shares on the alternative market or bonds. At the same time, however, we observe that firms issuing shares on the alternative market are most likely to manipulate their profitability prior to going public.     

INCENTIVES AND THE COST OF FIRING IN AN EQUILIBRIUM LABOR MARKET MODEL WITH ENDOGENOUS LAYOFFS*

I study the effects of firing costs in an equilibrium model of the labor market with moral hazard. Layoff is an incentive device, modeled as termination of the optimal long‐term contract. When the economy’s stock of firms is fixed, firing costs could reduce layoffs and increase worker welfare. In the long run when firms are free to enter and exit the market, firing costs generate not only lower employment, longer unemployment durations, and lower aggregate output, but also lower welfare for both employed workers and new labor market entrants.     

Physical productivity of new firms: it is not as high as it appears

This paper argues that the physical productivity of new firms is not as high as it is measured with conventional approaches. The overestimation is due to two reasons, both of which are related to the underestimation of production inputs of new firms. On the extensive margin, while conventional approaches implicitly assume the share of production costs in the total costs is the same for all firms, new firms spend a larger share of their costs on production. On the intensive margin, conventional approaches usually use capital stock as the proxy for capital input and tacitly assume a constant ratio between capital service and capital stock, whereas new firms tend to use their capital more intensively. Failure to incorporate the two facts leads to economically significant inflation in the measured physical productivity of new firms.     

MARKET ACCESS,INVESTMENT, AND HETEROGENEOUS FIRMS*

This article presents a model of international trade in which heterogeneous firms can expand through capital acquisitions. I show that demand elasticities are a crucial element in predicting which firms invest, in what location, and for what reason. High‐productivity firms, who tend to sell goods at a low elasticity, invest for market access (tariff jumping). Middle productivity firms, who tend to sell at a higher elasticity, invest for productivity improvement. The relative value of trade costs dictates which incentive is larger. In equilibrium, trade liberalization can reduce aggregate productivity by reducing an important source of investment demand: foreign firms.     

Resource abundance,market size,and the choice of technology

How resource abundance and market size affect the choice of increasing returns technologies is studied in an overlapping‐generations general equilibrium model in which manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition. The model is surprisingly tractable. First, for the steady state, the wage rate, the level of technology, and capital stock are not affected by the amount of natural resources. An increase in the share of agricultural revenue going to natural resources leads to a lower wage rate and firms choose less advanced technologies. Second, an increase in market size increases the equilibrium wage rate, level of technology, and capital stock. Finally, other things equal, a country with a lower endowment of natural resources or a higher market size has a comparative advantage in producing the manufactured good.     

资本市场发展对商业银行的影响及其对策

资本市场的发展对商业银行的负债业务、信贷业务造成了冲击,同时也给商业银行的转型和发展带来了机遇,银行可以以资本市场为平台开展多元化的业务经营,并通过上市完善其治理机制.商业银行应推进金融业务创新,以提高银行经营效率;进行技术和制度创新,提高金融服务水平;加强人才培养,进一步增强银行竞争力.     

Using surveys of business perceptions as a guide to growth‐enhancing fiscal reforms

This paper assesses the merits of using business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth‐enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper demonstrates that such perceptions of growth constraints may be misleading from a policy perspective. In particular, firms can be expected to systematically overestimate the growth‐enhancing effects of lower tax rates relative to public services and public capital, and underestimate the growth‐enhancing effects of greater provision of public capital relative to taxation and public services. In addition, we show that firms rank different public services and different types of public capital according to the actual costs they impose on firms. It is then shown that these theoretical predictions regarding how firms rank constraints correspond closely to the observed ranking of constraints by firms in the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys.     

Broad-based employee stock options grants and IPO firms

This paper examines the broad-based grant of employee stock options (ESOs) in the period following the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Stock option grants are used to reduce the negative effects of conflicts of interests associated with a firm's going public. The study documents that option grants can be seen as corporate governance instruments for a number of model specifications. Also, it is found that there is a robust relation between option grants and market and accounting returns, respectively. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous study has investigated the determinants of the grants of employee stock options in the post-IPO period to both upper-level and lower-level executives during a period of sixteen years. Because the cross-sectional data of this study amply encompasses more than a business cycle it is possible to examine the grants of ESOs across tight and soft labour markets. During the former type of labour market it appears that more options are granted. Also, the empirical results provide evidence that option grants are an increasing function of the employees’ benefits for the firm. Finally, the findings show that cash constrained firms appear to use employee stock option grants in place of cash compensation.     

Job creation and job types – New evidence from Danish entrepreneurs

We extend earlier analyses of the job creation of start-ups versus established firms by considering the educational content of the jobs created and destroyed. We define education-specific measures of job creation and job destruction at the firm level, and we use these measures to construct a measure of “surplus job creation”, defined as jobs created on top of any simultaneous destruction of similar jobs in incumbent firms in the same region and industry. Using Danish employer-employee data from 2002–2007 that identify the start-ups and that cover almost the entire private sector, these measures allow us to provide a more nuanced assessment of the role of entrepreneurial firms in the job-creation process than in previous studies. Our findings show that although start-ups are responsible for the entire overall net job creation, incumbents account for more than one-third of net job creation within high-skilled jobs. Moreover, start-ups “only” create approximately half of the surplus jobs and even less of the high-skilled surplus jobs. Finally, our approach allows us to characterise and identify differences across industries, educational groups and regions.     

Unexpected Share Repurchase Announcements

Abstract

Open-market stock repurchase announcements are generally perceived by the stock market as a signal of firm undervaluation. Our study shows that repurchase announcements that were preceded by SEOs of other firms in the same industry within the prior six months (namely SEO-RPs) are more likely the result of lacking investment opportunities than signaling undervaluation, especially in concentrated industries. Specifically, we find investors response negatively to SEO-RP announcements while react positively to regular repurchase announcements. The higher the intensity of SEO activities in the industry, the more negative market reaction to SEO-RP announcements. We argue that the market doesn’t expect a repurchase announcement when other rival firms are raising more capital via SEOs. These SEO-RPs represent a negative surprise to the market and lead to a downward adjustment in value of the repurchasing firms in the announcement window. In the three-year post-announcement periods, the SEO-RP firms underperform regular repurchasing firms in both stock return and operating performance. Moreover, while regular repurchasing firms gradually increase their capital expenditures, SEO-RP firms significantly reduce their capital expenditures. These findings support our arguments that repurchase announcements that immediately follow SEOs of rival firms (SEO-RPs) more likely indicate the announcing firms entering a slower growth rate with fewer investment opportunities than signal the undervaluation problem. The underperformance in stock return and operation combined with a significant reduction in capital expenditures in the post-announcement periods are consistent with this logic and also explain why the market reacts negatively to SEO-RP announcements.     

资本市场开放与企业真实盈余管理——基于“陆港通”的经验证据

资本市场开放不仅是扩大国际融资、更好地利用国际金融市场的需要,而且对我国资本市场发育和上市公司行为具有多重外部治理效应。本文借助我国内地与香港资本市场互联互通机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放对企业真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现:(1)总体上,“陆港通”机制的实施显著降低了标的公司真实盈余管理程度。(2)委托代理问题是企业进行盈余管理的重要原因,而“陆港通”机制开通后,能够缓解标的公司代理矛盾,进而约束管理层的真实盈余管理行为。(3)当资本市场信息环境改善、管理层面临较大股票抛售压力以及大股东监督力度较强时,“陆港通”抑制企业真实盈余管理行为的治理效果更强。本文结果表明,资本市场开放有助于提高我国上市公司财务信息披露质量及公司治理水平。     

资本市场开放与企业真实盈余管理——基于“陆港通”的经验证据

资本市场开放不仅是扩大国际融资、更好地利用国际金融市场的需要,而且对我国资本市场发育和上市公司行为具有多重外部治理效应。本文借助我国内地与香港资本市场互联互通机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放对企业真实盈余管理的影响。研究发现:(1)总体上,“陆港通”机制的实施显著降低了标的公司真实盈余管理程度。(2)委托代理问题是企业进行盈余管理的重要原因,而“陆港通”机制开通后,能够缓解标的公司代理矛盾,进而约束管理层的真实盈余管理行为。(3)当资本市场信息环境改善、管理层面临较大股票抛售压力以及大股东监督力度较强时,“陆港通”抑制企业真实盈余管理行为的治理效果更强。本文结果表明,资本市场开放有助于提高我国上市公司财务信息披露质量及公司治理水平。     

Brand capital and firm value

We study the role of brand capital – a primary form of intangible capital – for firm valuation and risk in the cross section of publicly traded firms. Using an empirical measure of brand capital stock constructed from advertising expenditures accounting data, we show that: (i) firms with low brand capital investment rates have higher average stock returns than firms with high brand capital investment rates, a difference of 5.2% per annum; (ii) more brand capital intensive firms have higher average stock returns than less brand capital intensive firms, a difference of 5.1% per annum; and (iii) investment in both brand capital and physical capital is volatile and procyclical. A neoclassical investment-based model in which brand capital is a factor of production subject to adjustment costs matches the data well. The model also provides a novel explanation for the empirical links between advertising expenditures and stock returns around seasoned equity offerings (SEO) documented in previous studies.     

国有机构投资者持股能提升企业投资效率吗?

具有国资背景的机构投资者,对于资本市场平稳发展具有重要意义。本文基于我国2015—2019年A股上市公司样本,考察持股对企业投资效率的影响。研究发现,持股显著提升了企业投资效率,并且该影响在代理冲突更严重和所处信息环境更不透明的公司中更加显著。机制检验表明,降低企业内外部信息不对称和代理成本是持股提升企业投资效率的重要渠道。进一步研究发现,国有机构投资者持股时间越长,对企业非效率投资的治理效果越好;细分国有机构投资者类型后发现,致力于长期维护资本市场稳定和上市公司长期健康发展的证金公司和汇金公司对企业投资效率的提升作用显著,但没有发现“救市”基金和外管局旗下的投资平台对企业投资效率有提升作用。研究结论从企业投资效率视角为国有机构投资者持股在微观企业日常经营中发挥的治理作用提供了新颖的经验证据,对进一步提高我国上市公司质量具有启示意义。     

送转与定向增发：基于市值管理的视角

送转和定向增发是 A 股市场上常见的两种公司行为。文章旨在从市值管理的视角，揭示上市企业送转与定向增发的内在关联及其经济逻辑。研究发现：(1)定向增发企业送转的比例与规模显著高于配对的未增发企业，而且两者的差异在增发后显著大于增发前；(2)在有外部机构投资者参与的定向增发中，企业送转的比例与规模显著高于其他类型的定向增发；(3)企业送转行为会显著影响增发折价，增发后送转企业的增发折价显著低于增发前送转(从未送转)的企业。文章研究表明，送转是 A 股市场上定向增发企业广为使用的一种市值管理手段，送转的规模与时机是企业与外部投资者理性博弈的结果。文章的研究不仅从市值管理角度为我国资本市场上频频出现的上市公司高送转行为提供了经验证据，而且对于监管层制定与送转和定向增发相关的政策具有重要的参考价值。     

SCIENCE-BASED R&D IN SCHUMPETERIAN GROWTH

Firm success is often associated with the development of better products. Private firms undertake applied R&D seeking market advantage, by capitalizing on the freely accessible results of basic research. But unpatentable basic research often fails to address applied R&D open problems. What is the role of the incentives in improving the innovative performance of an economy by matching partially motivated public researchers to their mission? Sometimes government-funded research projects are mission-directed, and yet in many cases the public sector academics indulge in carrier-driven research. An innovation system where, as in the United States, basic research is also driven by patents implicitly sets an ex-post incentive to the researchers guided by invisible hand. For a public innovation system – like the European one – designing an incentive scheme to motivate public researchers is of key importance for fostering the performance of the economic system. This paper extends the Schumpeterian multisector growth model with vertical innovation by highlighting a link between the degree of 'targetness' of public research and aggregate innovation. A positive effect of social capital is also proved.     

IPO初始回报与创业投资参与的研究——基于我国创业板的实证研究

本文在论述国际学术界关于创业投资在企业IPO中作用理论研究的基础上,通过采用实证分析方法,对我国创业板上市的153家公司2007—2009年的数据进行研究,得出如下结论：企业IPO初始回报与是否有创业投资参与具有显著的正相关关系。同时,IPO初始回报与公司规模显著负相关,与股份发行比例显著负相关,与公司上市时年龄显著负相关,与企业上市日的上证指数收益率显著正相关,与净资产收益率显著负相关。     

民营企业与中国企业债券市场的发展

文中认为,我国企业债券市场发展落后于股票市场的主要原因在于对发行主体局限于国有企业,发展企业债券券市场的关键在于打破企业经济性质,按照市场条件进行审批,其中特别指出民营企业在目前已具备做为债券发行主体的市场条件,并为完善企业债券市场提出了一些建议。     

DO STOCK MARKETS VALUE EFFICIENCY?

An empirical model determining the relationship between changes in firm-level productivity and changes in firm value is estimated using an unbalanced panel of 706 public limited companies observed over the period 1996–2002. We find a positive relationship between efficiency and the market value of manufacturing sector firms controlling for traditional accounting measures of performance such as earnings per share and the return on capital employed. This evidence is consistent with the stock market valuing the adoption of better management practices that lead to better resource utilisation. By contrast, we find no such evidence for service sector firms.